


Excavations

by verdenal



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Death, M/M, other background relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-10 23:39:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/791505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verdenal/pseuds/verdenal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten years ago, Peter framed Stiles and the rest of the pack for a series of gruesome murders. They managed to escape. Now, for the first time in the years, they've come back home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Excavations

**Author's Note:**

> There are about 9 million different versions of this in my head, but this is what I went with.

**Now:**

They sneak back into the States for the first time in ten years across the Mexican border. The security is actually pretty good, Stiles notes—way better than it was when they first left—but it’s designed to stop humans, not werewolves. They move in darkness and once they’re out of any border patrol’s range Boyd lets out a whoop and stretches his arms to the sky.

“It feels good to be home,” he says in answer to Allison’s raised eyebrow.

“It’s Texas,” Stiles reminds him. “It’s basically another country anyway.” That earns him a snort from Scott, which he figures is as much validation as he’s going to get.

They walk through the night. Once, Stiles would have been exhausted. Not that he’s enjoying this experience, but it’s bearable now. The air is still cool and crisp, the bleakness of the landscape is strangely inviting. Boyd was right, Stiles thinks. He should be keyed-up, on edge, constantly making sure no one recognizes them, but he feels light and free and safe. He feels like he’s come home for real, not just to Texas but to his own front porch.

The feeling lasts through the blushing dawn, and through hitting their first town, and through Erica unbuttoning another button on her shirt and marching in to a mechanic’s with a fistful of cash and buying a junker of a minivan. Stiles actually starts to worry that the feeling won’t leave until they’re out of the country again. 

He regrets that thought about two hours later, when they pull up to a gas station and Allison kills the engine, gets out, and then gasps so loudly even Stiles can hear it. Chris Argent is standing at the pump next to theirs. Scott lets out a little whimper and instinctively slips down in his seat, and Stiles pulls Isaac down without thinking.

Outside, Allison is pulling out of a hug from her dad looking like she’s going to cry. She doesn’t, though, just listens to him talk and holds her left elbow in her right hand and watches as, minutes later, Chris Argent walks back to his car. It’s been more than a decade since he’s met her and Stiles is still awed by how strong Allison is. If Scott didn’t love her so much, Stiles would probably marry that girl.

She drives in silence for the rest of the day, and Stiles and the wolves nap intermittently until they reach their destination. It’s a Motel 6 just over the border into New Mexico. Allison checks them in, and Scott walks her into the room. He gives Stiles a look that Stiles knows is meant to be subtle but is just kind of ridiculous, but since he’s a good friend he gives an over exaggerated nod and shepherds the rest of the pack back to the car.

“We’re going grocery shopping,” he announces. “Does anyone remember seeing a grocery store?”

“Nope,” Erica answers, all smiles.

“But we should probably drive around aimlessly for a little while anyway,” Isaac says from shotgun. “That looked—”

“Pretty brutal, yeah,” Boyd fills in. “But I wonder what he said.”

“You guys weren’t listening?” Stiles asks.

“No,” Erica tells him, “that would have been rude.”

“Most useless werewolves ever,” Stiles grumbles.

They do end up driving around aimlessly for what feels like forever until they find a Walmart. They manage to blow half an hour just walking through it, marveling at how much stuff there is. Stiles is fairly sure the wolves play a game of hide and seek while he ponders lunch meats. They get lost on the way back to the hotel, too, which must be some kind of major accomplishment because Stiles is pretty sure there are like five buildings of interest in this entire county. 

Allison lets them in. Her face is dry, but Stiles can see the red rimming her eyes and hugs her as he enters. 

Later, when they’ve eaten and complained about getting lost and how boring everything is here, Allison straightens up and puts on her serious face and says, “So my dad kept track of where everyone’s parents are. Sheriff Stilinski and Mrs. McCall are still in Beacon Hills. Erica’s parents went to Tucson, Boyd’s parents are in LA with one of his sisters. The older sister is in Idaho.” She trails off after that, but Stiles is able to pick up where she left off.

“Arizona, California, Idaho, get the hell out of here?” he proposes.

He’s met with shrugs and a low grunt from Boyd, but he’ll take what he can get.

Tucson in the morning, then.

 

**Then:**

Everything is Peter’s fault, which Stiles should have seen coming. A man who spends six years cultivating his rage in perfect stillness and then comes back from the dead knows how to play the long game, but Stiles is nineteen and Stiles is an idiot.

The moon is bright and full on the June night two drunk tourists wander too close to the Hale house. Stiles is standing watch in the foyer with Lydia while the rest of the pack is confined to the basement cells. Peter comes up, and tells them there’s someone coming. He stands too close to Lydia for comfort until Stiles can hear the sound of heavy, drunk footsteps. 

“Don’t open the door for anyone,” Peters says, and leaves. Stiles has a comeback on the tip of his tongue, but it’s too late. 

Peter comes back and goes downstairs without a word, and Stiles forgets about it.

-

Two days later his dad knocks on his door wearing a facial expression Stiles hasn’t seen in years. He hands Stiles a familiar manila folder and Stiles’s stomach bottoms out.

There are two bodies in the pictures. Their throats have been slit. It looks like they were held down too tightly to struggle. In the next set of photos there’s what looks like an altar that Stiles has never seen before but is composed of elements he knows he should know but look strange when brought together. He doesn’t need to keep looking; he knows what has to be coming next. The only car that had driven up to the Hale house that night was his. He and Lydia had carpooled, and the wolves had come over on foot earlier. 

“Please tell me there’s another explanation for this,” his dad begs. Stiles doesn’t know what to say, exactly. 

“I didn’t do it,” is a strong start though, he figures.

“I didn’t think you had,” his dad says, soft, “but it doesn’t exactly look good, Stiles.”

“I know, I know,” he breathes out, and holds his head between his hands. He tries to think about when anyone was even on the Hale property, and then it comes to him in a flash: Peter and his smile that is all wolf even when he’s human, how close he stood to Lydia, the menacing set of his shoulders, the drunk kids that never came to the front door.

“It wasn’t me,” he says again. “I know who did it, I think, but it won’t matter to the police.” Stiles looks up at his dad, and tries to smile, “I’m sorry.”

He thought they were done with this, with the apologies and the lying and stretching of the truth and the hideous weight of this guilt on his shoulders, but that is apparently not Stiles’ lot in life. 

He stands up. “I can fix this,” he says, and then pauses, “for various definitions of fix.” He’ll panic later. Alone.

 

**Now:**

Stiles always feels safer when they’re close to the Mexican border, and Allison must agree, since they hug it the entire way to Tucson. The police are more interested in illegal immigrants and drug cartels than in a minivan full of adults whose faces may look a little familiar, and if they do get caught it’s easy enough for them to vanish into Ciudad Juarez, to dredge up cartel contacts, call in favors. At least, that’s what they’re all hoping, but Stiles has settled into a constant state of hyperawareness. There are probably some significant negative consequences to his condition, but the alternative is worse. It always is.

In the rearview mirror he can see Erica fidgeting, until Boyd reaches over and takes her hands into his. She won’t meet his eyes at first, but eventually turns her face into his neck, and Stiles sees her breathing finally start to even out. 

Erica was one of the ones who hadn’t told her parents back in Beacon Hills. Stiles had tried to ask her about it once—Boyd’s parents had taken in stride, shockingly, as had his dad and Mrs. McCall—but she had tightened her jaw and Stiles had backed off, had seen something angry and wounded in her that didn’t need to be disturbed.

They drive all day and in silent agreement find a hotel for the night without ever mentioning Erica’s parents. There’s the same meaningless chatter over a dinner of takeout, but there’s a tension that Stiles doesn’t like. He’s lost the feeling of being home. He wants out of this country.

In the morning, Erica is already gone.

She comes back before noon with stiff shoulders, and when Scott asks, “Did you have to, you know?” and wiggles his fingers she only glares at him. With Erica, though, you can never tell what that means, exactly. Stiles figures she’s entitled to have at least one secret of her own.

 

**Then:**

It’s Peter’s fault, but Stiles doesn’t do himself any favors.

He can’t rush in without knowing what Peter was doing, first, or Peter will undo him in twenty words. He goes to the library, and that’s his first mistake, the handful of books on Celtic mythology that he checks out and then spends hours leafing through. He doesn’t find anything about altars and blood sacrifices—well he does, but not the altar he cares about—but the triskelion comes up again and again.

Cernunnos, he reads, but in his head he sees the rippling of the muscles in Derek’s back, the curls of his tattoo glistening with sweat, the knobs of his spine rising up like mountains. Stiles swallows and puts the book down. 

He doesn’t like to rush into things like this, but there isn’t much choice. He calls Lydia and Scott, and Jackson, but not the betas. They’re too close to Derek, and Derek can’t know, not yet. Peter, for reasons Stiles simultaneously does and does not understand, is Derek’s gaping blind spot. If Peter is gunning for Derek, as Stiles suspects—and even the though summons a sick curdling feeling that spreads through his stomach—Stiles needs to deal with it now.

Peter is waiting for them by the altar; he must have heard the sound of their cars approaching. Stiles swallows and tries to meet his eyes. Normally, he doesn’t act scared of Peter, doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction, but there’s no point in pretending anymore.

After that the memories are fragile, painted over with a kind of protective haze. He remembers Peter talking, but he can’t say for sure about what. He remembers the buzz of adrenaline and the watchful eye he kept on Scott.

But it isn’t Scott who lets his temper get the best of him. It’s Lydia, who gets in Peter’s face, glad to at last have a reason to unleash her fury and her hatred on him. 

Peter’s claws in the milky expanse of her throat bring him a sick sense of déjà vu, as he throws her onto the altar. Jackson moves too fast for Stiles to stop him, and then there isn’t anything to do but grab Scott and run as fast as he can.

Peter doesn’t chase them.

Stiles can’t think about what that means, even later, when he’s sitting in his room shaking, with the taste of vomit still stuck in his mouth. He’s fucked everything up, he thinks, and if they send him to prison, send him to the chair, it doesn’t matter because he deserves it. Lydia is dead and Jackson is dead and Stiles lead them to their murderer’s door. He deserves whatever comes next.

 

**Now:**

Beacon Hills doesn’t look like it’s changed since they left. It makes Stiles sick. He doesn’t know what he expected, not that it would do anything to assuage his guilt anyway. It just isn’t fair that the town itself endures when Lydia is dead, that the town has not changed when Stiles has. 

Allison parks on the outskirts of town, in one of the many hidden places they all still remember. Scott and Stiles will walk to their parent’s homes, while the others skulk and try not to be recognized. Before they leave Scott and Allison pull away from the group and stand in the shadows together. From what Stiles can see they’re just holding hands and standing too close, but he gets it. He doesn’t want to be alone now, either.

Almost as if he read Stiles’ mind, Isaac slides a hand across his hip and pulls him close. “It’ll be fine,” he says in a low voice. “Your dad loves you. He never believed that you did it.”

Stiles knows Isaac’s right, but the words get stuck in his throat. Isaac shrugs. “Or, you know, not. You can’t go home again and all that.” It startles a laugh out of Stiles, and Isaac smiles. His eyes crinkle at the edges and Stiles think that maybe he can do this after all.

Scott comes over after a moment and claps Stiles on the shoulder. That’s his cue to break away from Isaac, and he and Scott slink into the shadows without another word. It feels too familiar, this sneaking through the town. Stiles feels eighteen again, he feels young and weightless and a grin creeps onto his face. Scott catches his eye, and Stiles realizes that he’s smiling, too.

No one seems to be around—it’s nice to know that Beacon Hills is still the easiest place to hide in the world—so Stiles doesn’t care when Scott starts talking too loud.

“It’s weird that our parents moved in together, right?”

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees, because he knows what Scott means. “But I guess it’s kinda cute, right? And that makes us, like, officially brothers.”

“Step-brothers, maybe?”

“Close enough,” Stiles decides. It isn’t weird that he and Scott are actually family now. It is weird to think of his dad and Scott’s mom being in love and cooking dinner together, but Stiles understands. He can’t imagine what it was like for them after he and Scott left. They couldn’t leave a note, or pass along even the most cursory of messages. Stiles hopes his dad understands the ten year long radio silence that Stiles has maintained. The only thing Stiles has wanted for a long time is to hug his dad, to call him, even to send him a fucking letter, but silence is the only thing that’s kept them safe, and Stiles knows a lot about sacrifice. 

The Stilinski family home looms in front of them before Stiles realizes it; Beacon Hills feels so small, now. Of course his dad hadn’t been able to move, Stiles thinks, not from the house where his wife used to live. He hopes Melissa understands.

“Ready?” Scott whispers as Stiles picks the lock on the back door.

“As I’ll ever be,” Stiles replies, and walks in.

His dad and Melissa are in the living room, and Stiles is afraid one or both of them is going to have a heart attack when they look up and see Scott and Stiles standing there. He can’t, for once, think of anything to say, but Scott has him covered.

“Uh, hi, Mom, Sheriff Stilinski. Please don’t call the cops.”

As far as openers go, it isn’t great, but Stiles’ll take it.

Apparently, so will Melissa, since she crushes Scott to her chest and starts to sob. Stiles is still rooted in place, staring at his father. He’s pretty sure he’s crying, but this has become an almost out-of-body experience by the time he manages to move forward and hug his dad, finally. It’s been ten years, and this still feels like home.

They go upstairs in wordless agreement, and leave the living room to the McCalls. Stiles’s room is exactly as it was the last time he saw it: the bed is slightly unmade, the posters are peeling at the corners, his computer is resting at the edge of his desk.

“Dad?” He asks. His voice cracks.

“I couldn’t bear it, Stiles,” his dad says, “I couldn’t stand the thought of losing the only part of you I had left.”

A dam in Stiles’ heart breaks at that. He cries like he hasn’t cried since his mother died, and doesn’t stop until his body feels wrung out, until he can’t remember what it feels like not to cry. His dad guides him to the bed and sits there with him, his arms around Stiles like it’s ten years, fifteen years ago. Stiles wishes more than anything that it were.

When he can talk without his voice breaking on every second word, Stiles apologizes. He says, “I’m sorry,” a million different ways, for a million different things and his dad just sits there and shakes his head.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” he says, and Stiles feels another wave of tears bubbling up in his chest. “But,” his dad continues, “I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you’re alive, and you’re safe. I wish things hadn’t turned out this way, that I could have helped you…”

“There was nothing you could have done, dad,” Stiles insists, “and like you said, I’m okay.”

“Are you happy?”

Stiles is taken aback. He shouldn’t be, he thinks, since this is a normal question that parents ask their children. But he doesn’t know the answer.

“I’m alive,” he says, instead. “I’m alive and I got to see you again, so,” Stiles pauses, “yeah, I guess I’m happy.”

His dad doesn’t look completely convinced, but this is as close to the truth as Stiles thinks he knows how to get. He hasn’t examined his own happiness in years, because he isn’t happy, at least, not in the ways he thought he would be at twenty-nine. He doesn’t really know what he wanted at eighteen, but it wasn’t this.

After that the conversation flows more naturally. His dad asks about Scott, and Allison, and invites Stiles to stay the night, but understands when Stiles says he can’t, and tears cluster at the corners of his eyes again. 

When he and Scott leave, Stiles sees that Scott’s eyes are red-rimmed, too, but neither of them says anything about it.

 

**Then:**

After Lydia and Jackson’s bodies are found the whole thing just turns into a clusterfuck. Peter and Derek are nowhere to be found, Stiles is suspect number one, and the rest of the pack is under intense scrutiny, too, since the detectives are at least smart enough to realize that Stiles couldn’t take Jackson as easily as the evidence suggests he was. There are FBI agents everywhere, and cameras. The whole thing is a media circus, and Stiles realizes that if he weren’t currently being grilled in his bedroom by said FBI agents he would be waiting for updates with bated breath.

Instead, of course, he’s trying to find answers that won’t incriminate him or reveal the Beacon Hills is infested with werewolves. Stiles is shocked that they aren’t going after Derek for this, but when he mentions it one of the agents smirks and says Derek has an alibi. Stiles can’t imagine anyone in Beacon Hills being willing to lie for Derek who wasn’t already lying for Derek. 

The books are what do him in. He’d even marked the relevant pages. Stiles had managed to restrain himself from leaving notes on the post-its, but he doesn’t think that ended up helping in the long run. 

“I checked them out after,” he argues, but the agent peering over the books just writes down the titles and smirks.

“You’re a good liar, kid, but we already checked with the library. These were checked out, under your name, two days before the first two bodies were found.”

“No, they weren’t!”

“The woman working there swears she saw you. It’s in the system. Unless you’ve got a doppelgänger, there’s no way out.”

Stiles clenches his fists so hard he can feel his nails break the skin. This isn’t possible, he thinks. It’s the only thought running through his head as he sinks to the bed and lets his head tip forward.

One of the agents comes closer, and Stiles wonders if he’s going to try and play good cop, but then he stops abruptly and says, “What’s that?”

“What?” Stiles asks without looking up.

“There, on your collarbone.” The agent probably points but Stiles doesn’t need to look up to know what he’s referring to.

He knows the bruise intimately. It is the exact size of Derek’s mouth, spread sloppily over Stile’s collarbone, still bright red at its core, purpling at the edges.

“It’s nothing,” he mumbles.

“Sure doesn’t look like nothing,” the agent says. Stiles wonders if they’ll ask about a struggle, if they’ll think Lydia or Jackson managed to hit him there of all places, or if they’ll ask about a girlfriend instead. Either way, he can’t tell the truth. Being linked to Derek Hale, former murder suspect, is the last thing Stiles needs. Lying now won’t help him. He can’t even feel worried anymore. It’s done. This was a trap, he realizes dully, and he walked right into it. It was probably Peter. There’s probably more to it. It doesn’t matter.

Stiles closes his eyes as the agents leave, presumably to talk to his dad.

It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done.

 

**Now:**

LA is huge, glittering and crowded, and no one looks twice at them. Stiles loves it for that alone, but there is an itch under his skin that always comes when there are too many people around him. He rarely pays it any mind; it is only one item on the laundry list of Weird Things About Stiles. It took him years to be able to sleep through the night; the hypervigilance that had crept into his life when he was sixteen is so normal to him that he’s shocked whenever someone points it out; he’s meaner now, cruel in petty little ways that in his gentle moments leave him with a bad taste in his mouth; he can disassemble, clean, and reassemble a gun in record time; he can weigh bales of cocaine by eye with shocking accuracy; he’s twenty-nine and his family is a ragtag group of werewolves and one werewolf hunter; none of this bothers him anymore.

Boyd’s mom invites them in with a wary smile. His dad and his sister are in the kitchen too. They still when Boyd’s mom shows them in. Erica steps up next to Boyd and leans over to whisper something to him, pressing her hand to the small of his back, and then she shepherds everyone back out to the foyer.

“It should be fine,” she assures them, “but I think they need some time alone.” Stiles gets it; the rest of them had been alone with their families, after all.

They fidget and make small talk in the foyer for what feels like forever, until Boyd comes back with a shaky smile and tells them that it’s ok. 

Back in the kitchen his parents do look better, and his sister is smiling wide, won’t stop looking over at her brother.

“Thank you so much for looking after Vernon,” Mrs. Boyd says, and Boyd promptly looks like he wants to melt into the floor. “I’m so glad you’re all ok. Have you seen your parents yet?”  
“Yeah,” Scott says. “You guys were our last stop, actually.”

“Saving the best for last,” Erica says, and Stiles can’t actually tell if she’s joking or not.

“Second to last,” Boyd corrects her. “Louise—my other sister—is up in Idaho, now. If I don’t go see her she’ll be furious.”

“Idaho?” Isaac scoffs. “What’s in Idaho?”

“Not a lot,” Mr. Boyd says. “Lot of land, mostly. Not a lot of people. She’s working as a ranch hand. I think she just wanted to get away from everything for a little while.” At that, Boyd looks down, and his mother makes a disapproving noise.

It gets a little weird, so they end up leaving soon after that. Boyd looks sad, but calmer than Stiles can remember him being in a long time. Boyd’s mom hugs Erica, too, and whispers something in her ear that makes her blush. Stiles files the moment away for future blackmailing opportunities.

They wind their way across the city to where they’d left the car; driving and parking in LA had been too much for anyone to contemplate. They were all exhausted, worn down to their very bones, and, besides, they hadn’t been doing a great deal of driving over the past ten years. Mostly they talk about what you do on a ranch in Idaho, and what the weather is like in Idaho, and how nice Boyd’s family is. They very pointedly don’t talk about what comes next. They can’t stay in the states, and Stiles, at least, doesn’t think he wants to. Coming home had felt wrong, somehow. He’s glad for the closure, but he isn’t who he was in Beacon Hills anymore. He wishes he were, God, every day he wonders if there was something he could have done to change things. He’s run through a million scenarios, and it the end they’re all worthless. He’s twenty-nine and he’s always going to be on the outside.

Back at the car, Isaac touches his hip and asks, “Are you ok?”

Stiles leans into the touch but says, “Yeah, I’m fine.” Isaac doesn’t need to hear about the angst that Stiles has been lugging around for ten years again. 

They have a fifteen hour drive ahead of them. Stiles volunteers to take the first driving shift and pretends he doesn’t feel Isaac’s gaze on his back.

 

**Then:**

Stiles doesn’t actually remember much about the period between being arrested and being jailbroken. Even the first few weeks after that are still hazy to him, and he isn’t very interested in excavating those memories. 

It was Allison, of course, brilliant, resourceful Allison who had known that none of them were cold-blooded killers, and especially not the kind of killers who would turn against their own, and had come to rescue them. They had darted back and forth across the country, not daring to stay in any one place for too long, not with their faces plastered everywhere. Even Reddit was trying to catch them. 

His first reliable memories are of them crossing into Mexico. It’s Isaac and Erica’s idea—of course, he thinks—to try and work for the cartels. Their logic is sound, to a bunch of teenaged ears. Werewolves probably have a leg up on everyone else, and who better to turn to for fake passports. Erica speaks Spanish and Boyd has an ear for languages. 

It goes swimmingly, until it doesn’t. They take their (impeccably crafted) passports and flee, but not until after Stiles forces Scott to kill the man trying to cage them. He remembers screaming at Scott, saying you have to do this, there’s no other way, no way out, and no one contradicts him.

After that the wolves defer to him on most matters. No one mentions Derek.

It feels like rock bottom, Stiles thinks on the flight out. He still doesn’t know if they managed to claw their way back up.

 

**Now:**

Boyd’s sister lives alone in a small house in the middle of nowhere, Idaho. She explains that she works seasonally, and for different ranches. Stiles enjoys listening to her stories. She’s a lot like Boyd: smart and funny, but so understated that you don’t notice it at first. She loves her brother, clearly. It’s almost too heartwarming, the way she hugs him again and again, but it also breaks Stiles’ heart a little. She seems so afraid Boyd will disappear if she looks away from him for too long.

She offers to let them all stay the night with her, but she doesn’t have enough room. She looks over at Boyd, then, and Stiles wonders if this will be the moment they fall apart. Boyd visibly hesitates, but shakes his head and follows the rest of them back out to the car. His grief is writ large across his face but no one will say anything. This moment will join the host of others that they don’t acknowledge anymore. The price of their unity is heavy.

The full moon is tomorrow, so the wolves are too restless to sleep. Allison offers to take them to one of the many empty, wide fields around and keep an eye on them while they run, since it’s Stiles’ turn to keep watch on the full moon night.

Stiles nods, and waves her off. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. He feels leaden, but it has nothing to do with physical exhaustion. It’s as though ten years’ worth of fear and anxiety have descended on him all at once. He can’t even change into his pajamas. He just sits at the table and stares at the cheap wood. He’s so focused that he doesn’t hear the footsteps until they’re right in front of the door. Of course he had remembered to lock it but that doesn’t stop the fear that clutches at his chest. Stiles moves silently over to his bag, and slides the gun out.

Whoever’s in front of the door is taking their sweet time. Stiles imagines a SWAT team taking up their positions, and moves to give himself a clear shot at the front door with as much cover as possible. He doesn’t hear anyone talking, but, then, he’s no werewolf.

The doorknob starts to turn and Stiles swallows hard. He doesn’t want to have to shoot someone; he’s trapped here, with no car, no one to turn to. He doesn’t want to be caught. He doesn’t want it to end like this. The person on the other side of the door jiggles the knob twice more, and then slams the door open. The door chain is ripped out of the wall, and Stiles drops the gun to the floor.

It’s Derek.

 

**Then:**

After they leave the states, no one mentions Derek again. Before that, in their frenetic criss-crossing of the country, Erica and Isaac and even Boyd had insisted that Derek would find them somehow. He would have figured out Peter’s plan and killed him, and then he would find them and they would be a real pack again. That, Stiles guesses, is why it takes them so long to leave.

After that, he’s the most taboo of taboo subjects. Allison has never cared about Derek, and when they bury him in the cemetery of the past, she seems almost glad. Scott looks disappointed, but the other three wolves look gutted. Stiles doesn’t understand but he pretends he does. He pats Boyd on the back and hugs Erica, not complaining when her nails dig into his back. When he hugs Isaac he isn’t prepared for the hiccoughing sob that Isaac lets out, but he just wraps his arms around him tighter and lets him cry.

Later, alone, he touches the spot on his collarbone where the bruise had been, and says his goodbyes.

 

**Now:**

“We’re going to have to pay for that fucking door,” is the first thing Stiles says to Derek after ten years. It’s absurd, and yet fitting. Derek doesn’t respond, just closes the door behind himself and asks,

“Were you really going to shoot me?”

“Yeah, if I had to.” Stiles isn’t lying. Maybe when he was eighteen this would have been tough-guy posturing. Not anymore.

“That’s no way to greet an old friend,” Derek says. His smug grin is as infuriating as Stiles remembers. He moves around the room like he owns it before sitting in the only chair. Stiles sighs heavily and sits on the edge of the bed closest to the door.

“Why come find me? Why not your pack?”

“I didn’t want to cause a scene. If I’d known you were going to shoot me I wouldn’t have come here first.”

“Tell me how you really feel,” Stiles deadpans. “You’re right, though. They’d rip you apart, and with no one around to stop them.”

“They have every right,” Derek admits. Stiles is shocked; he’d been prepared to draw this confession out of Derek of the course of hours. He sits in silence, waiting for Derek to continue. He doesn’t.

They sit like that, just staring at each other, for what Stiles would estimate is fucking forever. Derek looks older, yes, but not really different. Stiles wonders what he did for ten years, alone. 

“Do you have a new pack, now?”

Derek looks genuinely affronted. “No,” he snaps. “After…everything, I couldn’t do it.”

“Everything? You mean Peter betraying the rest of the pack and you not doing anything about it?” Derek looks even more stricken. Good, Stiles thinks, let him hurt. This is the fight he’s been waiting for.

“It’s more complicated than that,” Derek insists.

“Is it, really? It seems pretty clear to me. You were going to leave them to rot in that jail.”

“Them, Stiles?” Derek has a meanness to him now that reminds Stiles vaguely of Peter. He can’t decide if he likes it or not. “What about you? You were in there too, in fact, you were the prime suspect.”

“I knew you weren’t going to come for me,” Stiles spits. “I wasn’t pack, Derek. We weren’t _friends_.” Derek doesn’t say anything immediately, so Stiles barrels on. “Christ, Derek, I was being investigated by the fucking FBI and you didn’t care, Lydia and Jackson died—Peter killed Lydia and Jackson and you didn’t do anything. What was I supposed to expect?” Stiles breaks off there and realizes that he’s brought one of his hands up to his collarbone, that his fingers are, once again, splayed across the phantom bruise. Stiles has never hated it more than he hates it now, and he has spent so much time hating not Derek, but that one purpling reminder of him. 

Across from him, Derek is still silent. He looks like he’s waiting for something. Stiles is reckless, and feeling generous, so he’ll give it to him.

“When they came to question me,” Stiles won’t say about what, won’t say Lydia’s name in front of Derek, “I had this, god, I had this stupid fucking hickey. Right here.” He taps his fingers on his collarbone. “I thought my shirt covered it, but I guess when I leaned forward people could see it. They asked me what it was,” and he has to stop there, to choke back the hysteric laughter clawing its way up his throat. “They asked me what it was, and I couldn’t exactly tell them, could I? ‘Oh, this is the hickey I got from Derek Hale, former murder suspect, who is also seven years older than me.’ That was when I knew.” Stile can’t look up at Derek, but he can hear his breathing. “I knew you weren’t going to be there. I knew you wouldn’t come.”

Stiles starts to cry, but it takes a second for him to really realize that he’s crying. Of course he’s cried in the past ten years; there have been fights, drunken afternoons, moments of despair so all-encompassing that he had thought he would die, but Derek is sitting across from him and he’s crying because of Derek. It isn’t fair, he thinks. This was never supposed to happen.

Derek says his name but Stiles won’t look up. He has to get himself under control. He hears his phone buzz. It’s probably Allison giving him an ETA. He should check, in case they’re closer than he thinks. He doesn’t. Instead, he just stares at the ugly motel carpet and wonders if Derek will see himself out.

Stiles hears Derek get up, and hopes the this means he’ll get to be alone, but all Derek does is walk toward Stiles and then stop, all without saying anything. Stiles still doesn’t look up. He figures it’s Derek’s turn to put a little effort into this conversation.

“It really is more complicated than you think,” Derek says. Stiles actually laughs. It’s such a pathetic thing to say, and so quintessentially Derek.

“I know, I know,” he says, waving a hand in Derek’s general direction without looking up. “Cernunnos, vengeance, sacrifice. I don’t have all the pieces but I think I’ve figured it out well enough. I’ve had ten years, Derek, I’m not an idiot. Unless you’re telling me you just now got away from Peter.”

“No,” Derek says, drawing the word out. “I killed him six years ago.”

“And you never thought to find any of us.”

“You did a remarkably thorough job of vanishing.”

“We had to. Our faces were everywhere. We were like celebrities or something. But you couldn’t find us, even with your super special werewolf powers?”

“I can’t smell across an entire continent, Stiles.”

“No, but you have that magical pack bond or whatever. Boyd tried to explain it but I don’t know that he did a very good job. It was almost like no one had ever really taught him how to be a werewolf.” Stiles does look up then, to see if his barb had struck home.

Derek does look wrecked. There are circles under his eyes, now that Stiles takes the time to really examine his face. He looks lost; Stiles savors it until he suddenly can’t. He wants to hate Derek, and he does hate Derek a little but he can’t hate him completely because he was Peter’s victim too, and he was alone for ten years, as alone as Stiles was if not more. Stiles is tired of being alone, and he spends his every breath with five other people. He can only imagine how Derek feels.

Derek takes a step closer, and Stiles steels himself and reaches out. He catches Derek around the waist and pulls him closer so he can bury his face in Derek’s stomach. Derek stiffens at the contact, but Stiles feels him force himself to relax. One of his hands rests awkwardly on the back of Stiles’ neck.

They only stay like that for a moment, and then Derek is suddenly kneeling in front of Stiles. Stiles wants to run, and when Derek reaches for him he pulls away. Derek looks wounded, and Stiles rolls his eyes.

“Why did you think I was going to let you touch me?”

“You touched me first!”

“That’s different.”

“I don’t see how.”

“You left, asshole. You left me in prison, to take the fall for your uncle’s murders. You’re the bad guy here.”

“I think Peter’s really the bad guy here,” Derek jokes.

“It’s relative,” Stiles snaps. 

“I missed you.”

“Derek, it was ten years ago and I was a teenager. You should let it go.”

“So you’re telling me you don’t care at all. You never thought about me.” Derek is smirking. Stiles doesn’t like this new Derek. He’s more predatory. Of course, Stiles isn’t prey anymore. He wonders if Derek’s figured that out yet. He always was slow on the uptake.

His hand moves, unbidden, to the treacherous spot on his collarbone. Derek’s smirk grows wider and, if possible, more aggravating. Stiles sneers at him in return, but he knows it’s a weak attempt at best.

Derek leans forward and bats his hand away. Stiles has a heartbeat to realize what Derek is planning before his mouth latches on to Stile’s collarbone and he sucks, sharply. Then it’s all teeth, less a kiss than a bite. It hurts; there’s almost no pleasure in the sensation at all and Stiles revels in it. His body arches and shifts towards Derek, a moon in orbit. When Derek pulls away his mouth is red and bright and he looks very young.

Stiles, too, feels very young. He wants, still, to make Derek leave, to drive him out and never tell anyone what happened here, but the wolves will smell him and that small treacherous voice in his head tells him that he doesn’t really want Derek to leave. He wants to fight with Derek more, and he wants to fuck him. He wants to sleep, for once, without worrying about anything. He wants so much, so fiercely. He hasn’t wanted anything in a long time.

He can already feel the bruise forming.

“The others won’t be back for almost an hour,” Stiles tells Derek as he finally checks his phone.

Derek smiles up at him. “I can wait.”

Stiles smiles back.


End file.
